“The MoU signed today strengthens the collaboration between the Ministry and the Malta Football Association with the final aim of increasing the number of children involved in regular football or physical activity, which is pertinent for Malta as we have the highest percentage of obese children in Europe,” said Minister for Education Justyne Caruana, before presiding over the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding between the Ministry for Education and the Malta Football Association.
Minister Caruana explained, “The MoU focuses on the need for more physical activity amongst our school children, whilst facilitating the pathway from school to community to foster continued involvement in football and sport.” Collaboration will also lead to increasing the number of primary children within state schools offering regular football or physical activity as part of the Active Friday programme or any other any similar initiative, increasing the number, variety and frequency of opportunities for young people to engage with football and also to facilitate the pathway from school to community/clubs to foster continued involvement in football/sports, which is already proving to be a successful partnership with the girls.
The aims will be reached through several initiatives, one of which is the Fun Fit Football sessions, which will have special focus on the development of motor skills and not only football-specific technical skills, and which will be inclusive to all school children with the participation of both class teachers and LSEs.
MFA President Bjorn Vassallo said that, “The MFA’s mission is to continue growing and improving the game of football and the people in it at all levels, while fostering a positive social change to embrace a sporting culture. It is therefore crucially important that the football association and the education division work together to offer opportunities to thousands of children using football as a tool for education, to promote inclusion and to embrace diversity”.
Mr Vassallo said that schools with their reach and influence have been identified as key stakeholders. For many, the school environment may provide the first taste of physical activity, sport and, crucially, football. Ensuring that as many children as possible can practise football in school and that this first experience of the sport is positive and enjoyable, leading to lifelong involvement, are therefore the main goals of the Football in Schools programme. We welcome this agreement and hope that it is the start of a needed sporting cultural change in our country.
This agreement will pave the way for other future projects, initiatives and programmes, so as to ensure the tangible implementation of today’s agreement.
The MoU was signed by Frank Fabri, Permanent Secretary at the Ministry for Education and Bjorn Vassallo and Angelo Chetcuti, President and General Secretary on behalf of the Malta Football Association.
Link to footage: https://we.tl/t-VDauStuMJf
